Free and Easy Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Real Estate Site

Like the AT&T TV commercial, we want more – as in more site traffic. Great news! There are plenty of free and easy ways to drive traffic to your real estate website. Before lending you options, it might be helpful to understand the definitions of the, “types,” of website visits that result in a free visit.

organic keyword visit– when a visitor conducts a keyword search on the web, locates your website, and clicks to your site. Sometimes referred to as a website being, “up in the searches.”

direct visit- when the visitor arrives at your site by going directly to their internet browser and entering {www.yourdomainname.com} directly into the address bar.

referral visit – when a visitor arrives at your site from another website such as Google+, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, ect.

Here are a couple of free and easy ways to drive, “Direct,” traffic to your site:

Add your website link to the bottom of your email signature so your website is accessible to anyone that receives an email from you. You’ll want to make sure the link to your website is an actual working hyperlink and not just text.

Invite phone callers to to visit your website by telling them in your voicemail message. Example, “Thank you for calling. I look forward to returning your call promptly. In the mean time, if you would like information about buying or selling a house, please visit my website {www.yourdomainnamehere.com}”

Be sure to verbally tell people about your website and all of the terrific resources available on your site. This is a big one… lots of people forget to talk about their websites. Remember to tell your friends, family, past clients, neighbors, potential clients, and anyone else that will listen, about your website. When describing your site, be sure to let them know about the tools that it will be useful specifically to them. Example, if your site has a search function and your best friend’s mom is looking to move, be sure to tell her that she can search for properties on your site. Or if your neighborhood is curious about comparative home values and you have a CMA lead capture built into your site, be sure to tell her how to find that page on your site so she can submit a request for a CMA. When talking about your site, don’t forget to mention your domain name.

Design your site to easily offer an abundance of helpful and valuable information so its memorable and visitors will want to come back. It would be ideal if they bookmarked your site!

Include, “bait” on your site, aka- information requested from you that could easily be accessible on your site. If you are getting calls from other agents for you to email seller’s disclosures, floor plans, neighborhood plats, hoa covenants, ect, simply add those documents in downloadable PDF format on your site and tell people they can easily access their requested information on your site. If you often times field calls from clients requesting recommended service providers, consider adding a page on your site with your preferred vendor list. Any page you can add to your site that encourages people to visit your site, that also decreases the amount of work you do, its a helpful website page.

Here are a couple of free and easy ways to drive, “Referral,” traffic to your site:

Include your website domain name in all of your social network business profile pages: Facebook, Google Local, Yelp, Yellow Pages, You Tube, Linked In, Yelp, City Search, ect. Anyone visting your site by linking from these social networks, is a free visit.

In status updates in Facebook, Twitter, and Google Local, include links to targeted website pages and text within the status update that highlights the benefit of those pages on your site. For example, if you have an equestrian property page built into your site, you could add a status update of, “If you live locally and are interested in horses, please check out this helpful page dedicated to people looking for equestrian properties,” then link to that page on your site.

Ask business partners, such as a preferred mortgage lender to add your website link to their website

One Final Free Tip

If you don’t already have one, create a page on your site that is dedicated to you, with your contact information, descriptive bio, and image. That way, your site will, “come up in the searches,” when your name +REALTOR® is searched. So when a visitor conducts a keyword search for you, they can find you by clicking on your site. The sames goes for your staff.

So there you have it – your complimentary guide with simple and easy tips to increasing traffic to your site.